


There's A Perfectly Good Explanation For This

by panda_shi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Bad Decisions, Character Turned Into Vampire, Cute, Dark Comedy, Disturbing Themes, Dorks in Love, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Human/Vampire Relationship, Loneliness, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Non-Consensual, Romance, Triggers, Trolling, Understanding, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23092738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_shi/pseuds/panda_shi
Summary: So. What's a young fairly average looking guy to do when he learns that he's alive but not quite, won't age, is super strong, super fast, can hear and can only live on blood? Easy. Be a hero! A super, amazing, cool, mysterious andsecrethero. To the village!It's great at first. Until Iruka realizes that it's actually quite lonely. It's even worse when he starts to develop a crush on one particular ANBU. Ah, really, his existence is so challenging sometimes!
Relationships: Umino Iruka/Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	There's A Perfectly Good Explanation For This

**Author's Note:**

> **If you're not okay with the idea of any possible non-con themes, stop reading and turn away now. This is your last warning. Because vampire feeding on partners who don't know you're a vampire can be read as non-con. So stay away please! Non-consesual tag is there for this purpose.**
> 
> Tags to be added as I write this. Pairings can alter here and there. To be added as I go along.
> 
> Also, not your traditional vampire fics. I'm only taking some aspects of your vampire-stereotype and using certain themes only + coming up with maybe-semi-original ideas (because I'm aware they may already exist in other canons/fandoms that I dunno about). I dunno.
> 
> Mind this warning. Mind the tags.

There is, in all honesty, always a perfectly good explanation for _most_ of everything.

That being said, Iruka’s current existence can be blamed on both coincidence and fate. 

Or. Well. That’s a nice way to put it. The kind of way one would use in official reports even though words like fate and coincidence have no room in said official reports. No one in the shinobi world truly believes in superstition and words like fate and coincidence, ultimately, falls under the umbrella bracket of ‘superstition’. 

No. 

The truth is that Iruka’s actual, current existence can be blamed on the good core values that have been instilled into him since birth by his parents (be good, be kind, be polite and always protect those that are weaker than you, blah, blah, blah all the good shit, ever). That and his youthful but also rather lofty ambitions of being some sort of cool hero. 

To be fair, at the tender age of eighteen where one still doesn’t know a lot of life things (even though technically, eighteen is the equivalent of a civilian, non-shinobi being thirty-eight), Iruka’s ambition to be some sort of hero still beats strong even though he’s been a chuunin for two years already. Iruka has ambition; if he cannot be a cool hero, the he is okay to settle with becoming some sort of super cool, famous jounin, just so that he can do his dead parents proud, make sure that the name Umino had the same prestige as that of Konoha’s famous clans. It’s not a bad goal to have. It’s honest, it’s real and really, there is nothing wrong with aspiring to reach higher stations through hard, dedicated, honest work.

Which is exactly how Iruka’s fate takes a sharp turn for the worst - or best -- those things tend to be subjective, anway.

It happens on one fateful C-rank mission run to Medicine. Iruka has completed his scroll drop and is on his way back to Konoha when he encounters semi-trouble in the form of individuals trying to capture a child.

The Child is a small, skin-and-bones like thing is trapped in what looks like a fishing net as five large, burly men surrounded The Child. The sight of it doesn’t sit well with Iruka because his righteousness, upon sight of said semi-trouble that is currently taking place a good one hundred meters towards the river, flares up and can only assume the absolute worse. Maybe The Child is being captured to serve some disgusting purpose like slavery, or to serve perverted whims of equally disgusting perverted individuals. The Child snarls, gnashing teeth, pitiful struggling noises leaving past little lips, as The Child kicks, claws and resists in any way it can. Obviously, The Child is no match for the burl and brawn of five, fully grown, towering men. 

Iruka honestly had no obligation to help. It’s semi-trouble because it’s not like he’s being attacked by those burly men. It’s semi-trouble because it’s happening at a safe distance; Iruka knows he can run if he wants to, he’s got the footsteps of a cat. Being quiet and sneaky is one of his best skills (all that practice pranking the Sandaime and his team came in handy after all -- hah!). Iruka can turn a deaf ear to all this, just continue down the forest path and away from the 

But if there’s anything Iruka is, it is not cruel. He wasn’t raised to be that way even though growing up, he didn’t get exactly get the best deal, almost always getting the shorter end of the stick. He cannot, in good conscience just walk away.

No one should.

So Iruka does what any decent human being would when they see a helpless child being hunted like _that_ as if it were an animal. Iruka stupidly gets involved in afight that he is, hilariously, outnumbered at. 

The burly men turns out to be hired Rock jounins — very, very skilled. The goal had been to distract them long enough to nab The Child and escape. In retrospect, Iruka would have never been able to take them all on, not even if he had achieved jounin status. The rule of war is simple. Numbers will always trump everything else. Honestly, what is an eighteen year old, ambitious, naive, practically _child_ of a shinobi supposed to to with a scene like that? Walk away?

The fight turns out messy, as Iruka decimates several trees when he sets up traps. The banks turn muddy and then charred when Iruka counters one of the Rock jounin’s Water Snake with his own Grand Fireball. Iruka dodges the best he can but when the jounin realize that he’s no flea to be ignored, when they start coming at him in a more coordinated matter, that’s when Iruka starts to lose and realize, as a short blade embeds itself into his middle, cutting through organs from his lower belly all the way up mid-chest, that there’s no way he’s getting out of this alive. 

He supposes, as he lands with a sickening, wet, squelch of a flop on the muddy banks that managing to set the child free from the heavy, iron knitted net he had been tangled in is victory. He supposes that his life at least isn’t so worthless -- someone younger, probably with hopes and dreams, maybe a loving family, too will get to live on. 

Iruka isn’t honestly pissed off that he sorely loses to those jounin. He isn’t even bothered at how he's depleted his chakra, or that he has exhausted his entire weapon supply, including the sealed ones. He’s more pissed off at the fact that he’s lying there, bleeding out, sounding like clogged drain trying not to be un-clogged, bubbling and gurgling disgustedly with a gash that feels as wide as the Bay of Fire right in the middle of his chest, his lungs collapsing as he struggles with the last few bubbling breaths that he should have heeded the first few rules they teach you after patriotic shit — fall back if you know you can’t engage your enemy. He should have listened to Homura-sensei’s words at the Academy, just so that he can prove to that horrible, bitter, ass of a pirate-faced teacher that he isn’t actually a good-for-nothing-student-who-never-listens. That he does listen. He does pay attention in class.

Iruka lies there, regretting not proving to individuals who had doubted him from the moment he lost his parents that he is worth something, that he is _not_ a failure of a ninja. 

That he is not worthless. 

He lies there bitter at the cruel world he’s leaving behind, so pathetically alone as the pool of blood around him grows, genuinely irritated that he had to die so far from home. That of all the ways to go, it had to be on a scroll delivery run to Medicine of all goddamn places - a boring, lame C-rank! 

Iruka doesn’t like the idea that he’s dying alone in the mud, that he will only be presumed dead when the Hunters try to find what’s left of his rotting body weeks later, maybe. There is nothing heroic about the way he is dying right now. No one will know how he had chosen to save the life of a small child. 

It is so anti-climatic that Iruka laughs. Or well, that had been the intention. The sound that leaves him is nothing short of a disgusting, diarrhea addled wet, bubbly fart. The world start to dim, as Iruka barely registers the blurry shape of The Child hovering somewhere near his face.

Never say that fate isn’t fucked up. Because it total is.  
  


*  
  


One moment, Iruka’s world is all black.

The next moment, he’s sitting up like a marionette, mud and dried blood all over him, his entire form smelling like the kind of vomit that involves eating several soupy sea-food dishes, fried food and at least four kinds of alcohol. Iruka remembers reeling from the _stench_ , gagging as he had struggles to his feet and throws himself into the freezing river, that at best had felt like room temperature. The river, that is.

Which should have been Iruka’s first clue because Medicine, during the month of November, had bodies of water that no human being with any self preservation would actually call room temperature, let alone willingly jump into and stay there scrubbing the mess of their clothes and body for at least thirty minutes. 

Iruka is so very happy to be alive. In fact, he’s so grateful, so excited to be breathing that it had been only after he had dragged his sorry ass out of the river, where he spots The Child lurking behind a large tree, that it hit him.

There is no way he would have - could have - survived those battles wounds. No fucking way! Iruka is no medic but even he knows that it’s game over when your organs are joining the river bank rocks like it’s part of the fucking scenery.

It would take a full team of medics and weeks of chakra regeneration to heal that kind of wound and that is, only, if Iruka makes it to some sort of medical facility in record time. The journey alone would have probably killed him, if anything.

Iruka remembers the wound on his front. He remembers his left leg being useless.

Now, as he jerks his shirt off and hobbles out of the river, Iruka finds himself staring at a flat lines of his stomach, at the smooth skin of his chest. His leg is functional, when it shouldn’t be. Not when he remembers how that rock spike jutsu had gone through his knee socket, how he had _howled_ in agony like a banshee at that, good grief, he wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone.

But his knee, like his chest and stomach, remains smooth, with only familiar old, white faded scars lingering over the surface of his skin. 

Perhaps Medicine is called Medicine for a reason.

Perhaps The Child, who is lingering at the other end of the river, head tilted, pale under the filtered morning light, his or her lips (Iruka really isn’t sure) obscured by the fall of long dark hair had gone out to get help. Maybe that’s why Iruka is at the end of the river and not the other side where he’s sure he had flopped down like a fish out of water earlier on, gurgling and all. 

Perhaps The Child had parents who were medics. 

That is the only logical explanation Iruka’s confused-as-fuck brain can come up with. 

“Are you okay? H-hey!” Iruka calls out, his voice shaky as he hastily tugs his sopping wet clothes back on. “Do you live far from here?”

The Child tilts his or her head (Iruka can’t really tell from the distance) to one side in a way that Iruka has seen several times in horror films, eerily owl-like, as a pale hand is lifted to give Iruka, of all things, a thumbs up sign. Iruka finds it odd, is taken aback as he studies the scene of the battle, taking note of the dried carnage but also noting the lack of bodies. 

Again, an odd thing. 

“Kid! You need to go home! Do you know the way home? They might come back!” Iruka says.

The Child shakes its head, black hair swaying left and right before pointing at the river.

Puzzled and a little unsure, Iruka takes a closer look, just as his knees go weak when he takes a few partially mortified steps backwards. Because right there, at the bottom of the river, are the five jounins, lying in piece -- torn, mauled, eyes wide open and staring up towards the surface. One of them, the fucker that had ruined Iruka’s knee with that earth jutsu, is missing half his head, water saturated pieces of brain, and flesh looking like oversized dumplings. They look like they’ve been dead for days, what with how some of the fish seems to be just swimming and poking at their flesh. Some of the fingers, and quite possibly a few toes and ears (Iruka doesn’t think it matters anymore) had washed ashore towards the banks. A rather large bug is now perched on a toe-or-finger, anentaes swaying away in the breeze, probably in excitement. . 

The five Rock jounin were not just killed. They’d been obliterated. To pieces. Several. Quite literally.

“Okay…” Iruka says, even more puzzled, his chest so very tight all of a sudden as he swallows past the invisible bolus of what-the-fuck in his throat.

The way they’ve been torn apart -- it’s beastlike. Rabid. Uncontrolled. Pieces of flesh should not resemble the torn edges of a rag. It’s just not right.

“Was this your parent’s doing? Did they come to help earlier? Or - or your family? Friends?” Irukca calls out again, trying to _not_ look at the bug that’s rolling that toe (yes, it’s definitely a toe) away towards it’s buggy-hideout.

The Child seems to smile as bony shoulders lifts up in a shrug. The child then begins to wave in the way most cutesy children do. Innocent, happy-go-lucky, like they’re not at all perturbed by the fact that there are bodies at the bottom of the river. All while still holding up the previous thumbs up sign. 

It looks like an agreeable confirmation. Sort of. Iruka is forced to conclude that this child is fucking weird. Maybe it doesn’t understand Iruka’s language. Or dialect. There’s a chance that the child is mute, too. Okay. Well, Iruka looks around and decides that there’s really nothing left for him to do here anymore.

“Y-You’re safe, I guess. Go home! And don’t lurk in the woods by yourself again! It’s really not safe! There are all kinds of twisted people out there! You don’t want to get caught again by weirdos, do you?” 

The Child, much to Iruka’s slight amusement, gives him a second thumb up sign. And without much of an aplomb, turns and dashes into the thick of the forest as if he or she were a forest mouse.

Iruka can _hear_ The Child’s footsteps as it connects with the forest floor, moving further and further away.

Iruka’s hearing is incredibly sharp at that point but he dismisses it as nerves, as he proceeds to run back to Konoha as fast as his legs can manage, wanting to put as much distance as he can to that horror scene at the river. 

The last thing he wants is to be caught being involved in something he shouldn’t have.

*

Iruka reaches Konoha in three days as opposed to the normal six days worth of travel. 

He is so tired by the time he wrangles his rickety door open, not even bothering to slide the locks into place as he kicks his sandals off by the genkan, strips out of his uniform tha the has full intentions to burn to soot and ash later and flops face first in his birthday suit on his small, narrow single bed.

He is so tired from having cut his travel time in half, terrified of that mental image of eyes staring up at the sun filerting through the towering canopy of oak trees that he didn’t realize how hard he’s been pushing himself.

Iruka did not think he had it in him to even move this fast (even though he’s been rather obsessively rigid with his training regimen for the past year). But well, as the saying goes, the will of fire burns hotter when it’s more determined. In this case, more determined to get away from a scene of murder (not that those weird jounins didn’t deserve it).

Honestly? The travel time should have been his first clue that things have changed.

*

However, the proverbial kick to the gonads comes when Iruka wakes up from being conked out cold when a cart happens to roll past his apartment building. 

It hits the small pothole that the community has already reported to Konoha’s Development Authorities to fix, because it’s dangerous and has been the cause of several cart accidents in the past and still counting (of course, they are yet to do anything about it, as usual). 

The loud _rattle_ \- _bang_ jolts Iruka wide awake, making him jerk in his bed like someone had slapped him awake or doused him with a bucket of ice water. Iruka sits up so fast that he gasps and ends up falling face first on the ground, face smacking on the wooden floors as the cart’s wheel sinking into the pothole continues to echo in Iruka’s head. It is followed by a crash, an alarmed cry and a cacophony of oh-noes, good-griefs, further punctuated by things hitting the ground. Probably vegetable or fruit crates. 

Iruka reaches up and covers his ears, curling into a small ball on the floor as the mini-accident sparks conversation from the entire street. Above and around him, windows are thrown open with shutters banging, as Konoha’s generally concerned populace allows their curiosity to view the drama unfolding in the street. Of course, there’s an argument about how Konoha’s Development Authorities doesn’t care. Of course, there’s talk about their tax money being looted. There’s even a rallying agreement that they must storm their office _right now_ and get some action done because how many times will something like this have to happen for them to fix this horrible, horrible, pothole?

Iruka groans and thumps his head a few times on the floor, trying to push the noise out of his head and wondering why, oh why, did he choose to rent an apartment on this particular street, in this particular side of town.

Right.

It’s all he can afford on his meager earnings.

Of course.

Iruka uncovers his ears with the intention to get up and submit his report. He might as well, now that he’s away. Iruka regrets it the moment his palms move an inch away from his ears.

The sounds of _everything_ around him grates against his eardrum. 

He hears everything -- the sound of his neighbors footsteps three floors down, the meow of the alley cat two streets away by the big dumpster, the angry baker from down the street conversing with the person delivering his flour supply (something about being ripped off), the pitter patter of the stray dog _walking_ alongside its owner somewhere near the community play area five streets away. It leaves him disoriented, dizzy with the sudden onslaught of the world that is so fucking loud and good grief, it’s ten in the morning, why and who is granny-Furi fucking at this time of the day and how, when she is practically a hunch back and can barely walk? Why does he need to hear this, damnit _why_?

Iruka slams his palms back against his ears, staring wildly at the ceiling as he breathes in and out like he’s spent the past thirty seconds running away from an enemy trying to depacticate his head. 

The noise muffles, as he blinks several times, trying to remember if he had ear plugs anywhere. He springs to his feet, rummaging through the first aid kit under his kitchen sink, upending it as the loud clatter, roll and bank _shoots_ into his ears, leaving him shaking as he groans and tries to ignore the world around him, urgency thrumming in his veins like a rush of adrenaline. He finds the two blue rubber earplugs, rips the plastic in half and shoves them into his ears.

The world dulls to a distant muffle, as Iruka collapses on his ass, staring at the scattered mess of his first aid kit as the panic, if anything, does not ebb away at all.

There’s something wrong with him. This isn’t normal for him.

And honestly, Iruka thinks the reaction that follows is sound for any shinobi at the time.

He panics.

And then proceeds to run to the big man himself. 

*

Hands down, Sandaime is probably -- in Iruka’s humble opinion -- the most graceful, understanding, patient human being there is in existence. 

Iruka stumbles into his office, wild-eyed, deaf to the world around him, ponytail slopping to the side, clothes wrinkled with his shirt inside-out, complete with a horrified cry of Hiruzen’s title. Sandaime says nothing about Iruka’s state of dress, nor does he bat an eyelash at how Iruka pretty much just storms into his office, the door banging then bouncing off the wall rather loudly. Sandaime dismisses the ANBU in front of him with a wave of his hand, and then motions Iruka to sit down.

Iruka unplugs the ear plugs from his ears and almost regrets it as the noise from everywhere just _slams_ into him like a tidal wave. He is swept by it, the sheer ferocity of ear-drum grating noise of chairs scraping against the floors everywhere - upstairs, downstairs, just outside Sandaime’s door - or the sound of the rolling archive shelves being pushed left and right, the slam of drawers, cabinets, doors, windows, the footfalls of what sounds like a billion shinobis all around him, the sound of water pouring into teacups, toilets being flushed, laughter, gossip -- Iruka cannot stop the well of tears at this point, panic winning over logic as the world around him drowns him in its fucking noise.

Iruka opens his mouth and hurls how he can hear _everything_ , his words garbled, his sentences ill-structured. He tells Sandaime that he can hear everything, that it’s like having a billion people inside his head and it is not normal. He spews out what had happened in the forest, leaving disclaimers left right and center how he shouldn’t have had to involve himself in an unnecessary battle. But that it had been a child! A small, tiny, helpless - later on, odd - child! 

“I don’t know what’s happening! This isn’t normal! I don’t know what’s going on with me! My head -- Sandaime, my head _hurts_! Please help me!”

That is when the nausea decides to make itself known.

This is when Iruka’s head _pounds_ with something that had to be worse than migraine, leaving him sensitive to the light around him, the smell of the air, the color and swirl of a hundred voices as his stomach churns like a boat being tossed in stormy sea.

Acid and heavens knows what comes up, effectively punctuating Iruka’s panicked blabber with a bubbling noise that doesn’t sound very good.

Sandaime’s eyes, at that point, had been comically wide.

And he’s not the Sandaime for nothing. He is not wise for nothing. He must have seen what is coming from a mile away.

Iruka supposes - as he throws up the contents of his stomach into the small office dustbin Sandaime had unceremoniously shoved under his chin -- that he should be grateful that Sandaime’s reaction to all this, is to just take a long, deep inhale from his pipe, as Iruka stinks up the office with vomit that smells like a rotting corpse.

*

Iruka isn’t sure why Sandaime decides to tolerate his insubordinate if not outright disrespectful behavior.

Whatever his reasoning, Iruka is grateful, as he takes the dustbin outside to the dumpster. He owes the Hokage a brand new dustbin. Which he will fetch. Later.

*

When Iruka returns, Sandaime gestures with a finger to his lips and expresses in field-shorthand that he’d like their conversation to continue in silence. 

Take a seat, have some tea, take the paracetamol, tell me what has happened, and keep those earplugs on, Sandaime signs.

Iruka does as he’s told, taking his seat at the table, shaking fingers somehow not sloshing the tea in the warm teacup. Iruka catches a bit of a ginger whif as he pops the pills into his mouth and takes a mouthful of tea to wash it down.

An instant regret, he realizes, once the liquid brushes against his tongue. Not because it is scalding hot. But because it tastes like the tea leaves had been decaying for a while. It’s like someone had decided to mix granite, ash, old laundry and charcoal, put them in little teabags and sell it to the public. Iruka flinches, gagging dangerously as everything that had been in his mouth - tea and paracetamol - comes tumbling back into the tea cup.

Gods, he’s fucking disgusting, isn’t he? Shameless and mannerless, too. He’s worse than a two year old. 

What’s wrong with my tea, Sandaime signs, a very displeased frown on his face.

Nothing, Iruka frantically signs back, lying through his teeth. Or fingers. Whatever.

“Iruka.” Sandaime warns.

It tastes like ash and very old cheese, Iruka signs, shoulders slumping as the heat rises to his cheeks, dusting over the tips of ears. It’s quite gross, Hokage-sama, sorry, Iruka adds, dropping his gaze shamefully to the bubbling spit on the surface of his tea and watching the two, white paracetamol tablets at the bottom of the teacup collecting air bubbles around its edges as it slowly dissolves in the warm tea.

Sandaime picks up his own tea cup to take a tentative sip. The old man rumbles a hum before signing, it tastes like ginger. Nothing like what you described.

I didn’t mean to insult your tea, sorry, Iruka signs back, bringing both hands to his face and scrubbing it down viciously in frustration.

Sandaime’s chair scrapes as he stands to move towards his desk. Iruka watches with a bit of comical surprise as the old man proceeds to take out several boxes of sweet and savory snacks from the bottom drawer of his desk. They are multi-colored, all sorts of sweet jelly, senbei, candies, toffies, wafer-fingers and ponzu flavored potato chips. The small pile is topped up with a single cherry flavored juice-jelly packet. In one swoop, Sandaime carries everything and lays it out on the table. Iruka stares at it for a while, as Sandaime takes a few puffs from his pipe.

Your snack collection is very… well, it’s certainly a variety, Hokage-sama, Iruka signs, blinking at the strawberry and chocolate cream flavored biscuits. He certainly did not peg the Sandaime for eating _that_. Most certainly not the grape jelly-juice packet type. 

Sandaime honestly comes across as the type of man who would eat raisins and almonds. Or plain salted senbei. Something equally boring if not old-man like.

Iruka straightens up when he sees Sandaime’s eye twitch, a bit of a flush dusting over the old man’s cheeks. “Go on and try them one by one. Let me know if they still taste like ash and old cheese.”

Iruka blinks.

And yanks the chocolate and strawberry cream biscuits first. Iruka tears through the packet like he’s unwrapping a birthday present. He pops a biscuit into his mouth and regrets it immediately. 

It tasted like fungi infested feet. It is disgusting.

Iruka cannot stop himself from gagging, from looking around the office for a box of tissues and bolting to his feet when he finds it on Sandaime’s desk. He spits the contents of his mouth and shudders, coughing and trying to wipe the taste out of his tongue.

“I think they’re expired!” Iruka complains very loudly, forgetting that he’s got earplugs on and therefore, cannot gauge the loudness of his voice, unable to quite contain his disappointment. He had hoped to bag the entire biscuit packet, too!

“No, they are not,” Sandaime grumps, flinching at most probably, the pitch of Iruka’s cry. Lower your voice, please, he signs.

Sorry, Iruka signs back, grabbing tissue box when Sandaime gestures for him to continue to try everything else.

Iruka does and by the end of it all, with all the snack packets lying open and most likely going to waste in front of him, a new kind of fear has taken hold of Iruka. It leaves him weak-kneed, stomach queasy, his hands shaking as he looks at Sandaime with a panic he can’t quite repress anymore, shinobi skills and decorum be fucking damned. 

Sandaime doesn’t react immediately. In fact, there is a long pause before Sandaime drums his fingers on the table and signs: tell me about the battle once more. And this time, slowly. 

Iruka does.

And when he’s done, Sandaime’s expression seems to shift to something a little darker. 

It’s enough to make Iruka fidget in his seat as tears threaten to well in eyes.

*

The first order of business is a battery of medical tests like no other.

The only thing odd about it all is that it takes place in a restricted area of the Torture and Interogation unit’s building, in an almost shadowy corner of their compound, obscured by trees and seals painted on the ceiling, doors and windows. It leaves Iruka quaking in his shoes as he helplessly looks over his shoulder at Sandaime signing, don’t worry, it’s all fine.

Except when someone tells you shit like don’t-worry-it’s-fine, that’s exactly when one should worry. They’re not comforting words when one is being escorted into the bowels of hell. It certainly isn’t inspiring when Ibiki meets Iruka at the end of the hallway, towering and menacing as ever. Iruka swears that even indoors, Ibiki’s cape seems to sway gently in an absent breeze. 

Iruka finds himself stopping before the tower of a man, easily a head and a quarter taller than Iruka, broad as a filing cabinet, dark eyes lacking any sort of shine under the halogen light -- it almost appears soulless, matte. Iruka suddenly has the urge to pee as he almost -- _almost_ \-- takes an intimidated step back. He thinks he’s done a good job holding his ground, looking up at his senior in experience alone. 

Take out your earplugs, Ibiki signs in shorthand. 

Iruka shakes his head in a fervent no to that. The last thing he wants is to aggravate his hearing with the noise of the world around him. Ibiki’s lips thins at that before he signs, this wing is sound-proof. You’ll be fine.

Iruka hesitates but carefully reaches up to pluck his earplugs out tentatively.

Sure enough, he isn’t slammed by noise everywhere. 

He can hear very light footsteps of exactly three people within the vicinity; otherwise, it’s a blessing.

His expression must have said it all because Ibiki _smirks_.

“This way,” Ibiki says, turning to continue down the hallway -- Iruka swears no coat should _billow_ that way. Physics and thermodynamics had to be involved or something.

He is lead to a small four by four, overly brightened, windowless room, with only an examination table pushed against one wall and one, single, very old looking wooden chair that clearly has seen better days. Ibiki motions for Iruka to sit before he perches his very tall self on that very old chair. The chair squeaks as Ibiki sits, silence hanging heavily between them, as Iruka holds his breath and waits for the poor chair to actually collapse, because goodness, how is it even accomodating a man of Ibiki’s towering built? 

The chair doesn’t collapse though, and within a minute or two, a medic joins them in the room and proceeds to collect all kinds of samples; blood, hair, tonsil swab, cheek swab, nasal swab, some of his hair and nails.

Iruka tries to be funny and asks if they want a urine sample, too.

The medic, who had introduced himself as Nowaki, simply continues to pack up the samples into a small, bright yellow, biohazard container and sealing it shut. 

“No but you will require a rectal exam,” Nowaki responds without skipping a beat.

“Why?” Iruka counters, a little high-pitched, the syllable rolling past his lips faster than he can even blink at the seriousness of the requirement. 

“Just because you’re a smartass,” Nowaki deadpans and exits the room leaving Iruka gaping open mouthed at the door. 

What a dick!

Iruka turns to look at Ibiki who simply returns Iruka’s incredulous look with one that can only be described as why-am-I-even-here. 

“If I were you,” Ibiki says as he stands and motions for Iruka to follow him. “I’d keep my wise-cracks to myself.”

Iruka can only bite his inner cheek, as he is escorted to a holding cell disguised as an office with a mirror that he knows is sealed, enforced and totally two-way. 

“Wait here. We’ll get you when the Sandaime deems it ready,” Ibiki says, waiting for Iruka to step into the room.

Iruka turns to ask about what if he wants the bathroom, or gets hungry and thirsty except he doesn’t get the chance to because Ibiki shuts the door before the question can tumble out of his mouth, just as the entire room hums with a light flare of chakra and Iruka is left standing there, staring at the door knob as he thinks:

Fuck.

*

Iruka waits for hours in that room until he eventually curls on the slightly worn leather couch and falls asleep. 

He knows he’s being watched but there’s only so much self-entertainment he can do by imagine Ibiki in all kinds of differently styled cloaks, posing on a hilltop and looking all menacing before he gets bored too. 

*

“Well, you’re not dead.” Sandaime says, hours and forever later, as he slides the medical report across the table of Iruka’s current holding-cell-disgusied-as-a-room.

Iruka had taken one look at the sheet of paper and pales. Literally, the entire content of his brain decides to pool somewhere around his ass from where he’s sitting on the leather sofa, trickling down like bad jelly towards his feet.

Because what the fuck,.

Iruka is no medic. But even he knew that someone with a resting heart rate for a field active shinobi should _not_ be six beats per minute. That no human alive should have the blood-count, platelet levels and so many other things that he can barely pronounce right at the levels that Iruka has in that moment. The piece of paper also fails to explain his heightened sense of hearing or the fact that nothing seems to taste like anything anymore. It doesn’t explain why those superbly expensive, good, fancy strawberry and chocolate biscuits tastes like bad cheese.

Which is sad because Iruka, at that point, is fucking hungry and he didn’t want his favorite, jumbo ramen bowl with extra pork slices and egg to taste like nothing. 

That would be outright cruel!

Utter blasphemy!

“But you should be,” Sandaime points out.

Iruka stares at the piece of paper again and can only weakly, pathetically deny what is being put in front of him. His heart may be the fucking slowest in the entire world but it’s still beating, isn’t it? Isn’t that like, the first thing they check to make sure one is still alive?

“But I’m not, though…” Iruka murmurs, and now realizes, with a bit of horror, why Sandaime had the Torture and Interrogation team run the battery of tests. He probably wants Iruka contained. Well. Fuck. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this!"

TBC


End file.
